Conventionally, as a solid-state imaging apparatus provided with pixels, each of which has a charge carrier holding portion capable of an electronic shutter operation, there is known configurations disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2006-262070 and 2006-246450.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-262070 discloses a configuration which has a shutter controller to perform switching between a first mode of transferring charge carriers of a photodiode to a power supply and a second mode of transferring charge carriers generated in the photodiode to a capacitor through a MOS transistor.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-246450 discloses a configuration which transfers a part of charges generated in a photoelectric conversion portion to a charge carrier accumulating region at a part of a photoelectric conversion period.
For example, in the case of a configuration which transfers a signal carrier generated in a photoelectric conversion period to a charge carrier accumulating region during a photoelectric conversion period as is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2006-262070 and 2006-246450, the following problems may occur: Reading out a signal based on charge carriers held in the charge carrier accumulating region to a common output line is line-sequential. In this case, holding charge carriers in the charge carrier accumulating region is required until a scanning unit selects a pixel and reads out a signal at the common output line. In launching light into the photoelectric conversion portion under such a state, a charge may be moved into the charge carrier accumulating region. When such a charge carrier movement occurs, noise occurs because a charge carrier generated during a different period from a basic photoelectric conversion period is mixed. Because the charge carrier mixing amount varies with the time held in the charge carrier accumulating region, noise appears as image shading and is visually recognized with ease. The noise is unpreferable for image quality.